CWL Atlanta 2018 Preview

9 March 2018 11:59

CWL Atlanta is about to get underway at the Georgia World Congress Center from Friday 9th March to Sunday 11th March. The third major of the season has a $200,000 prize pool and 25,000 pro points to be won, so who will be the last team standing come the grand final?

The Format

CWL Atlanta consists of three stages – an Open Bracket, Pool Play and Championship Bracket.

There’s over 160 teams from the North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific regions in the open bracket, with the four winners from the Winners Bracket advancing to the Pool Play.

Those four teams are joined in the Pool Play by the top 16 CWL Pro League Stage 1 teams, and these twenty teams are split into four pools of five teams, eventually leading onto a double-elimination, best-of-five Championship Bracket where the grand final winner will be crowned.

The Teams

The four Pool Play pools are shown below, along with the team’s odds of winning the tournament. You can also bet on which Pool will have hosted the eventual winner, and those odds are posted below as well:

Pool A- 2/1

Rise Nation – 10/3

Splyce- 11/1

Echo Fox- 16/1

Lightning Pandas NA- 40/1

Pool B- 5/2

Luminosity Gaming – 5/1

Team Kaliber- 6/1

Evil Geniuses- 25/1

Team Vitality- 50/1

Pool C- 2/1

OpTic Gaming- 7/2

FaZe Clan- 9/1

eRa Eternity- 40/1

eUnited- 11/1

Pool D- 4/1

Team Envy- 33/1

Red Reserve EU- 9/1

UNILAD eSports- 33/1

Mindfreak- 33/1

Teams will fight it out in the World War II game in a 4v4 mode in the Hardpoint, Capture the Flag and Search and Destroy game modes.

Prize Pool

The $200,000 prize pool is split between the top eight teams passed on the overall position:

1st place - $80,000

2nd place - $48,000

3rd place - $32,000

4th place - $16,000

5th-6th place - $8,000

7th-8th place - $4,000

The 25,000 pro points are then split between the top 64 teams.

Who Will Triumph?

CWL Atlanta is in fact the third major of the season, following on from CWL Dallas and CWL New Orleans. Team Kaliber triumphed in both, beating Splyce 3-2 in Dallas and getting the better of Luminosity Gaming in New Orleans to reaffirm their standing as one of the most dominant forces on the COD Circuit. The North American side have taken home a combined $400,000 from those two events, so it comes as no surprise they’re 12/5 to reach the grand final in Atlanta with their four-man team of Theory, Accuracy, Chino and Kenny. Despite these two previous tournament wins they are 6/1 to win the tournament, ranked behind the likes of Luminosity Gaming, Optic Gaming and Rise Nation.

Rise Nation’s quartet of Loony, TJHaly, Gunless and Methodz start as pre-tournament favourites with many of the bookmakers, although the United States-based side haven’t performed to their usual high standards in the past few tournaments. They came 14th in the CWL Dallas Open and 15th in the 2017 CWL Global Pro League Stage 2. However, they possess a team packed with experience, skill and ability, and their fans will expect them to reach the latter stages at the very least.

Elsewhere, OpTic Gaming’s Scump, Karma, Crimsix and Formal will be gunning for glory once again after 1st place finishes in last year’s COD World League Championship and CWL Global Pro League Stage 2. They have slipped to mid-table in at the CWL New Orleans Open back in January, but a side with their pedigree and experience should relish the opportunity to showcase their talents in Atlanta.